Ragtime — that bright, toe-tapping piano music that flourished in bars, brothels and parlor rooms in the early 1900s — has found an unlikely promoter and practitioner at UC Irvine: a young civil engineering student named Jared DiBartolomeo. DiBartolomeo belongs to a generation that worships technology, was raised on rap and is addicted to keyboards […]
“Do not say anything against rhyme! It is a mighty goddess indeed, the deity of very secret and very ancient coincidences, and one must never let the fires on its altars burn out.” — Rainer Maria Rilke They are small in number, the writers who have come to UC Irvine to study poetry through the master’s-level Programs […]
It took scarcely 35 seconds Jan. 12 for a magnitude 7.0 earthquake to cripple Haiti, flattening its capital and killing more than 200,000 people, but it will take many years for the island nation to recover. While devastating quakes have since struck in Chile, Japan and elsewhere, Haiti’s situation is unique. Desperately poor before the […]
A dusty trailer-home park near the Salton Sea may seem like an unconventional venue for medical education, but to a group of UC Irvine students, it’s ideal. At Duroville — a 40-acre tract in the Coachella Valley that’s home to some 4,000 mostly Latino farmworkers and laborers — they’re providing essential healthcare to an impoverished […]
It may have been a rainy winter, but there’s still cause for concern about California’s water supply. Just ask Jay Famiglietti, UC Irvine Earth system science professor and founding director of the new UC Center for Hydrologic Modeling, which aims to help the state tackle its drought-induced water crisis. Famiglietti recently made headlines when he and NASA […]
It’s a lecture UC Irvine neuroscientist James Fallon has delivered around the world, even on the hit TV show “Criminal Minds.” Discussing the biological traits of murderers, Fallon describes how he correctly identified 30 killers out of 70 subjects in a double-blind experiment simply by studying their brain scans. Audiences are fascinated. But a couple years ago, […]
Oladele Ogunseitan picks up a cell phone and tosses it into a small wood chipper in his UC Irvine lab. Is he conducting a wacky experiment? Overreacting to one too many dropped calls? Actually, Ogunseitan grinds up old phones for a purely scientific cause: He’s studying toxic electronic waste. Chair of the population health & […]
Most nurses see patients in health clinics, hospitals and offices, but Jill Berg is different. She makes house calls. Berg consults with people who have asthma and other chronic pulmonary conditions in their homes, churches and schools, often venturing into L.A.’s toughest neighborhoods. Her mission: to help them breathe easier. “I love getting out there […]
For William Bretz, there’s no such thing as just another day at the office. Instead of working behind a desk, he’s usually behind the wheel of a mud-splattered SUV, making the rounds at the San Joaquin Freshwater Marsh Reserve. On this bright December morning, rolling along an earthen dike, he encounters a flock of Canada […]
Kristine Preston steps softly onto UC Irvine’s Ecological Preserve, 62 acres of cheerful wildflowers and sweet-smelling sage scrub tucked above University Hills. “We had a pair of birds using this plant two days ago, which is just incredible,” she whispers, pointing to a large prickly pear cactus. The 40-year-old plant is one of a whole […]